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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745830">two sides</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Experimental Style, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, not so much angsty as it is negative, vent fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:53:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,654</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><b>The Contradiction of Love:</b><br/>You say you miss him, but you don't even know the real him.</p><p>That's a contradiction.<br/><br/><b>The Paradox of Hate:</b><br/>You are a creature hewn from pain and despair, but so long as no one wants to peer beneath the exterior, that is all right.</p><p>There is nothing left inside you, anyway. Your black hole heart has eaten it all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Contradiction of Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You are such a special boy.</p>
<p>Special, special, special. You are such a special boy, even though you never asked to be. You are such a special boy, and you hate it. You are such a special boy, and now you can't go back to being anything else.</p>
<p>You are special to so many people. They relied on you, counted on you, needed you to help them navigate their own messy, miserable lives. Too weak to stand alone, they relied on you to carry them to stable ground, and not once did any of them notice that your legs were trembling with the weight of the world.</p>
<p>But you still carried them through. What a special boy you are.</p>
<p>No matter how ugly things might have begun, the stories of the people you supported have had a happy ending. Here, a tale starts with blackmail. Here, another starts with extortion. Here, your very own story starts with the world betraying you. No good deed goes unpunished. Yet, in the end, it all turned out well, didn't it? You saved the world. You saved humanity. You saved the masses, lifting them up with nothing but the power of your own conviction. A conviction fueled by rage and fury, but at least you turned that anger to the right target.</p>
<p>You saved everyone.</p>
<p>There's just one exception.</p>
<p>. </p>
<p>He was once a special boy. Or, at least, he had managed to make people think he was special in ways that were and are so different from why you think he's special. </p>
<p>He was special to you because you couldn't figure him out. You still can't, even though it's too late to change anything. You poured so much into him, trying to catch a glimpse of the real him, and he took all of it and gave back...what, exactly? </p>
<p>A glimpse of the despair and emptiness inside? A last look at the hollow heart he possessed right before he vanished from the world forever? A faint memory of something that was never real to begin with?</p>
<p>You gave and you gave and you gave. He took and he took and he took. But it was all right. It still is all right. You are such a special boy; just like the number zero, you are empty and infinite all at once. You cannot run out of things to give: your time, your energy, your effort, your love.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>You once saved humanity from itself with the power of your conviction. You once took their twisted, distorted hearts and stabbed them with a dagger forged from your indignation and outrage at the corruption of the world. You once took the world's sins into yourself and used it as a weapon to drive out the distortion from humanity's heart.</p>
<p>Incredible, the things that someone as special as you can do. </p>
<p>You are full of love. It's part of what makes you special. Love for your friends, love for your associates, love for humanity. You take your rage and fury and turn it into a weapon of merciless love. You cut your way into their hearts, steal them for the greater good, and receive their love in return.</p>
<p>There's just one exception.</p>
<p>You want so desperately for him to not be the exception to everything.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>You miss him. You love him. Those short days you had spent together were everything to you. He had taken and consumed and eaten your affection and had given nothing but lies and deceit back, but that had only made you feel free. For once, you weren't carrying someone else while bearing your own burden. He would not have collapsed if you had stopped supporting him.</p>
<p>He might have had an easier time if you never had tried to support him.</p>
<p>How strange, to think that the one you are in love with is, in so many ways, a stranger to you.</p>
<p>You say you miss him, but you don't even know the real him.</p>
<p>That's a contradiction.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>You love him because he is empty. You love him because you can pour all of your love, born from rage and indignation, raw and ugly and unfiltered, into him and he takes it. Consumes it. Devours it. Over and over and over no matter how much you give.</p>
<p>You love him because he doesn't need you. You love him because he cannot love you back, not anymore. You love him because you could not have him, and now you never will.</p>
<p>You love him because, despite everything, you know so little about him. You love him because through him, you can see what could have been. </p>
<p>You love him.</p>
<p>You hate him because you love him.</p>
<p>You are such a special boy.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>
  <em>(In the hollow abyss, wearing the faces of an infinite number of shadows, the singular limb of chaos uncoils and strikes.)</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Paradox of Hate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You hate him. This is indisputable, undeniable fact.</p><p>You hate him because he's your enemy. You hate him because he's better than you. You hate him because he has what you lack.</p><p>You hate him because he is kind. You hate him because he understands. You hate him because through him, you can see what could have been.</p><p>You hate him because, despite everything that you were and are, he still tried to reach out to you. You hate him because he does not hate you.</p><p>You hate him because he gives you love. You hate him because he brings you joy. You hate him because you don't have anything else to give.</p><p>.</p><p>Your heart is a black hole.</p><p>Your heart sucks in love and joy and happiness and spits out nothing. It doesn't give back anything. It just takes and takes and takes until there is nothing left. </p><p>Your heart drains away praise like a vessel with no bottom. Empty praise, shallow praise, undeserved praise, deserved praise, genuine praise, heartfelt praise—meaningless, all of it. It goes in. It falls through. Nothing comes out. Nothing after nothing after nothing. </p><p>Your heart hungers. Hungers for what you cannot give yourself. Hungers for what other people are willing to give. But you believe there is no such thing as infinite love. There is no such thing as truly unconditional love. Love is a social contract. There is a give and take. A balance. A partnership.</p><p>Truly unconditional love is something that exists only in fairy tales and dreams.</p><p>That's why you tried to killed yours.</p><p>.</p><p>You hate him.</p><p>Your insatiable black hole heart just eats and eats and eats until there is nothing left, but he still has something to give. Your black hole heart has eaten even your own feelings, but he<em> still has something to give</em>. How? It is inexplicable.</p><p>You hate him for that.</p><p>You hate him because your black hole heart has devoured all your love: Your love for yourself, your love for other people. All affection devoured in an attempt to fill the gaping, empty abyss in your soul.</p><p>Your black hole heart does not consume hate. It does not consume anger. Those things cannot satiate the yawning chasm within. And so your body becomes consumed by them. Each cell of your flesh trembles and vibrates to the resonance of fury. You are so suffused with anger and hate that the only way to deal with the excess is to forge it into a weapon. You use it to cut away all your external unpleasantness and carve yourself into a statue of smiles and pleasant affectations; you are a creature hewn from pain and despair, but so long as no one wants to peer beneath the exterior, that is all right. </p><p>There is nothing left inside you, anyway. Your black hole heart has eaten it all. </p><p>.</p><p>You want so much to have a heart that does not hunger. You want so much to have a heart that does not destroy everything kind and good and gentle that dares reach out to you. </p><p>You want to be able to let him have it, but you cannot gift your hungry black hole heart. It is not because you are afraid of what might happen should he see the extent of your depravity. It is not because you are afraid of what might happen if he should come in contact with that all consuming pit you have instead of a heart. It is not because you are afraid to be hurt.</p><p>You cannot give him your heart because it does not exist. Your heart is an abyss. It eats and eats and eats but it never becomes anything. You cannot give away what you do not have.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>.</p><p>Your heart is a black hole.</p><p>But even black holes have mass. Too much of it. A heart that has been filled with too much hurt will eventually collapse on itself. Like a star, it condenses; the gravity of pain pulls the heart and soul in on itself, pushes and contracts and bends it, compacts it so that the heart becomes a singularity of grief.</p><p>Black holes were stars once. They shone, once, with a brilliance that could be seen galaxies away. Light is a tricky thing; by the time someone sees the light of a star, the actual star itself could have long since twisted itself into a ravenous black hole.</p><p>But the light still travels. Still journeys to touch the minds and hearts of others. The memory of what once was does not fade so easily.</p><p>Perhaps that is why you can love him. You were capable of it, once. Once, before your heart destroyed itself from hurt, you were capable of taking love and returning it.</p><p>That faint memory of light is all you can give him.</p><p>.</p><p>You hate him because he loves you.</p><p>You hate him because you love him.</p><p>.</p><p>
  <em>(In the endless sea, wearing the faces of an infinite number of souls, a butterfly flaps its wings and alights.)</em>
</p>
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